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Mayor crushes Sittenfeld's parking lease repeal

Mayor Mark Mallory used some parliamentary wrangling at Wednesday's Cincinnati Council meeting to successfully knock down an attempt to repeal the city's controversial parking lease agreement.

Council member P.G. Sittenfeld, a Democrat, came into the council meeting believing he had five votes to scuttle the agreement, which city manager Milton Dohoney signed Monday.

At the start of the council meeting, Sittenfeld asked a series of questions of Mallory, who presides over council meetings, about whether all the legislative powers of the city belong to city council.

Mallory overruled him, saying he could only ask questions about items that were on the council agenda.

Sittenfeld then asked if a ruling by the presiding officer of council could be overridden by a majority of council. He asked for a roll call vote of council on that question.

After about 20 minutes of side conferences among groups of council members, a vote was taken. Five council members - Roxanne Qualls, Wendell Young, Pam Thomas, Yvette Simpson, and Laure Quinlivan - voted to uphold Mallory's ruling.

Quinlivan had been one of the five who supported Sittenfeld's motion, along with Charlie Winburn, Christopher Smitherman and Chris Seelbach.

But the vote upholding Mallory's ruling, with Quinlivan as the swing vote, effectively killed Sittenfeld's motion.
 

Howard Wilkinson is in his 50th year of covering politics on the local, state and national levels.